Tuesday, 6 March 2012

Cows. Man's greatest conquest. For more than twenty years
man has dominated the bovine for the purposes of milk, meat, and a sense of
pride unmatched by any other feat. Consider the consequences however, if the
common cow became redundant - put out of business by clever men and science.

I say this because I
was reading recently about the advent of artificial meat, and that one day it
may be able to replace standard meat. That is meat grown in labs will replace
meat grown on animals. They're working on making a tasty artificial meatburger
as we speak, ready to change the world of fleshy consumption forever.

At first I was fully
in favour of this idea. Vegetarianism is something I have considered myself,
for environmental and obvious ethical reasons. However I carried on eating meat
anyway, not in order to harm animals, but simply because certain animals happen
to be delicious. The invention of synthetic meat would mean I could eat tasty
meat that had never been in an animal, thus removing the environmental/ethical
implications of eating slabs of beef, whilst still allowing me to eat steak
like a boss.

As I read more about
it though, I began to wonder what the wider implications of the absence of
natural beef would be, and came to some rather ominous conclusions.

Supposedly this
method of creating synthetic meat (something to do with stem cells blah blah
science) would allow one cow to create the same amount of meat as a million
cows. Now that leaves a hell of a lot of spare cows: 999,999 spares for every
meat producing cow in fact. Given that there are currently 1.3 billions cows on
earth (more than the population of Europe and the United States combined) that
leaves a shitload of cows out of work.

What will unemployed
cows do? Go down to the Jobcentre and get some money until they find work in
Pound Stretcher or Customer Support? Sit around drinking in front of libraries
and harassing passers by? Or will they wake up and realise that they've been taken
for a ride for years by humans who wanted to milk them for all they had?

There's not a lot we
can simply do with a billion cows that don't have much use. If we attempt to
use them all for milk we will have to plumb a milk tap into every house because,
and that will keep clogging as the milk goes off or becomes churned into butter
from swishing around pipes. A nation with so much dairy would be guaranteed to
die within years from heart disease, excess milk syndrome, or the dreaded and
terminal condition known as butter arse.

The other option is
that we kill all the spare cows, a situation only the most cold hearted
bastards would opt for. After all we only kill them now because we want to eat
them, killing them and then doing nothing with them would be an ethical
nightmare. Perhaps we could have a huge beef party before we all switch over to
synthetic meat, but I really don’t feel like organising that.

One more frivolous
option is that they could be sent to predominantly Hindu countries where they
will be cared for by those who find them sacred. However such a weight of cows
would be impossible to transport and even if they could be moved there would be
heavy enough to sink the chosen landmass into the core of the earth (this could
however be an argument in favour of sending them to Blackpool.)

Millions of
disenfranchised cows with nowhere to go will soon become unruly and hazardous,
knocking down dairies and trampling their way out of the countryside and all
over a completely unprepared urban landscape. Perhaps you think cows aren't
that dangerous. Have you ever seen a cow? They're fucking huge! They
communicate using a combination of moos of varying intonation and special
smelling farts, making it impossible to tell what a cow is thinking.

I however can tell
you exactly what they will be thinking. They will have revenge in mind, and a
single minded view to destroy humanity and take their place as the future
rulers of this planet, subjugating what remains of humanity into growing
endless fields of grass until their endless emissions heat the planet so far as
to render its entire surface a stinking barbecue.

Could cows indeed
overpower the human armies in a straight up battle? Cows are by their very
nature almost bullet proof, and can survive horrific damage before succumbing
to death. A cow can indeed survive without a face for some time, and despite
the loss of all it's senses would surely be able to crush to death at least
fourteen bright eyed children before it realised it was at its end. They are
also brilliant tacticians and anybody who thinks cows are slow moving and
docile is sadly mistaken- cows are one of the most agile creatures in nature, rivaling a fully grown cougar in speed and dexterity. At full speed a cow can
outrun a Delorean and smash a hole through a brick wall without even flinching.
Their only true weakness, as with most creatures, is fire. The main drawback of
using fire though is that cows are racially ingrained to become enraged
whenever confronted by flame, after years of hearing stories of their relatives
being flame grilled and sold by grimy teenagers at fast food restaurants.
Showing a cow fire will cause it to enter a berserk state in which it grows two
powerful arms which end in fists the size of basketballs, and begins punching
and swearing like a Scotsman with a thistle up his kilt.

In short, there is no way humanity could survive a full battle
against the bovine menace. My suggestion is that we if we insist on creating
fake beef* we also create fake bacon** so as to be able to recruit the
remaining pig population to our side in this battle. With the intelligence and unmatched
ability for consuming basically anything other than adamantium that pigs
possess we may stand a chance of defeating cows in what will be known as the
Interspecies Meat War. Otherwise the last thing mankind will hear before being
stomped out by a powerful hoof will be the most terrifying sound of all: